IND Eighth Avenue Line
}} The Eighth Avenue Line is the original rapid transit line of the Independent Subway System (IND), now run by the New York City Transit Authority as part of the New York City Subway system. For more than three decades from its inception in 1932, many New Yorkers called the entire IND system the Eighth Avenue Subway. Although it was the first portion of the IND put into service, this was never its official name. Most of the line is quadruple-tracked (with one local and one express track in each direction), except for the extreme north and south ends (which have just two tracks). The northern section of the Eighth Avenue Line (above 145th Street) was once designated the Washington Heights Line (entrance signage read "Wash. Hgts.-8th Av."). For this reason, some trains (R32 and R38 only) have rollsigns designations that read "Washington Heights–8 Avenue–Fulton Street". Extent and service Services that use the Eighth Avenue Line through Midtown and are colored blue on station signs, the NYC Subway Map and on train front and/or side route signs depending on the equipment used. The following services use part or all of the Eighth Avenue Line: The Eighth Avenue Line, running from uptown to , begins at 207th Street as a two-track subway. Two tracks from the 207th Street Yard join at a flying junction, and there are four tracks through Dyckman Street before the extra tracks end. Two local tracks begin at 174th Street Yard, north of 168th Street. They come in between the existing tracks, running through the center of 168th Street before moving to the outside. At that point, service stays on the express tracks, and service begins on the local tracks. At 145th Street station, the IND Concourse Line ( ) joins, with a flying junction just to the south to connect the tracks. Except during rush hours, service begins at 145th Street; trains switch there to the express tracks. Between 59th Street and 50th Street, a flying junction connects both express and local tracks from the north to the beginning of the IND Sixth Avenue Line ( ) under 53rd Street, and another flying junction south of 50th Street connects the tracks from the south to the IND Queens Boulevard Line, also under 53rd Street ( ). South of these junctions, the line continues down Eighth Avenue to 14th Street, where it turns southeast under Greenwich Avenue to connect again with the Sixth Avenue Line ( ) at the eight-track, bi-level West Fourth Street station. At this point, local tracks of both lines interconnect south of the station in another elaborate flying junction which allows local trains of either line to continue south on either the Eighth Avenue Line to and or on the Sixth Avenue Line to the Lower East Side and Brooklyn. As of 2005, no services transfer. The line then continues south under Sixth Avenue (which was built as part of the subway project) and Church Street. North of Chambers Street, the local tracks form a separate but parallel line to stub-end at World Trade Center, just east of the express tracks. These tracks are now the terminal for the train. This part of the line was originally planned to continue south of the World Trade Center beneath the via a new tunnel to Brooklyn. A bellmouth for this never-built section is visible from southbound trains on the route from Canal Street to the World Trade Center terminal. The train switches to the express tracks at Canal Street. The express tracks continue south and east under Fulton Street and under the East River through the Cranberry Street Tunnel to Brooklyn. After briefly running under Cranberry Street, the tracks turn south under Jay Street, meeting two tracks of the Sixth Avenue Line ( ) coming from the Rutgers Street Tunnel. The final station is Jay Street; south of here service can either continue along the IND Culver Line ( ) or the IND Fulton Street Line ( ). January 23, 2005 fire Around 2:00 p.m. on January 23, 2005, a fire destroyed the plant at Chambers Street. This caused restriction of service and complete suspension of service. Specifically, about one-third of the normal number of trains ran. Some newspaper articles have blamed the fire on a homeless person trying to keep warm, but that has not been confirmed. The in (east of Jay Street) was replaced by an extension of service on weekdays. The upper level platforms of the Eighth Avenue Line at 50th Street are only served by the , and were thus closed; the only uptown service to 50th Street was via the Queens Boulevard Line's connection ( service) into the lower level of the station. Additionally, the , which had formerly used the express tracks on the Eighth Avenue Line south of 168th Street (the 's northern terminus), switched to local at 145th Street, serving the two local stations that were only served by the (155th Street and 163rd Street–Amsterdam Avenue). The also used the local tracks in Brooklyn, serving all stations. Direct rush-hour trips to Rockaway Park–Beach 116th Street were suspended in favor of the always-running (connecting Rockaway Park Shuttle). Before the fire, on weekday nights from 9 p.m. to midnight, the was the only service on the local tracks north of 59th Street; the was switched to local to cover this. The was switched to local service on weekends to pick up the slack. During rush hour, extra trains were added, starting on or before January 28. Until the morning of January 28, the MTA moved the to the parallel Sixth Avenue Line, Rutgers Street Tunnel and Culver Line (the route used by regular service) from West Fourth Street to Jay Street between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m., in order to perform critical repairs. The last suspended service, rush-hour trips to Beach 116th Street, was restored on February 14, 2005; until then those trips required a transfer to the Rockaway Park Shuttle. Initial estimates gave a time of three to five years to restore full service, due to the rareness of the destroyed equipment. That was later cut back to six to nine months to bring back normal operations. However, service and 70% of service was restored at 5 a.m. on February 2, 2005, only ten days after the fire. On April 21, full service was restored. Background The Eighth Avenue Line, and the remainder of the system were built by the City of New York partly to provide modern rapid transit facilities and partly to compete with the private companies, the and . A subway under Eighth Avenue was an early goal of transit planners in the city. The BMT, in particular, hoped to operate the Eighth Avenue Line as an extension of its Broadway Line, operating under (Eighth Avenue) to the upper reaches of Manhattan. For this purpose, the express tracks north of the BMT's 57th Street station were continued north and stub-ended in anticipation of the service. These tracks have since been connected to the BMT 63rd Street Line, with future connections to the planned Second Avenue Line to the Upper East Side and . The whole line north of Chambers Street opened at midnight on the morning of September 10, 1932; the short section under Fulton Street, Cranberry Street, and Jay Street (including the Cranberry Street Tunnel) opened on February 11, 1933. The express tracks were always served by the service. service ran local, and was renamed to in 1986 and in 1988. Chaining information The Eighth Avenue Line is chained IND A. This chaining then continues through the Cranberry Street Tunnel to the IND Fulton Street Line, running to Euclid Avenue. The south end of West Fourth Street station is defined as chaining point 969+25 (Mile Post 18.357), and numbers increase to the north and decrease to the south. Station listing References *2 Subway Lines Crippled by Fire; Long Repair Seen, New York Times January 25, 2005 *Subway Disruptions Expected to Last Months, Not Years, New York Times January 26, 2005 External links *nycsubway.org - IND 8th Avenue *MTA New York City Transit - A/C/V service update